I Don't Want to Kill You

Written by Dan Wells

Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

John Cleaver has called a demon-literally called it on the phone-and challenged it to a fight. He has faced two of the monsters already, barely escaping with his life, and now he's done running; he's taking the fight to them. But as he wades through his town's darkest secrets, searching for any sign of who the demon might be, one thing becomes all too clear: in a game of cat and mouse with a supernatural killer, the human is always the mouse.



In I Am Not a Serial Killer, we watched a budding sociopath break every rule he had to save his town from evil. In Mr. Monster, we held our breath as he fought madly with himself, struggling to stay in control. Now John Cleaver has mastered his twisted talents and embraced his role as a killer of killers. I Don't Want to Kill You brings his story to a thundering climax of suspicion, mayhem, and death.



It's time to punish the guilty.



And in a town full of secrets, everyone is guilty of something.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Audio
• Release date: Mar 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452670546

Dan Wells

Dan Wells is the author of the Mirador series (Bluescreen, Ones and Zeroes, and Active Memory), as well as the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence and the John Cleaver series—the first book of which, I Am Not a Serial Killer, has been made into a major motion picture. He has been nominated for the Campbell Award and has won a Hugo Award and three Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses. He plays a lot of games, reads a lot of books, and eats a lot of food, which is pretty much the ideal life he imagined for himself as a child. You can find out more online at www.thedanwells.com.

Reviews for I Don't Want to Kill You

[zyphax-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I find serial killer books soothing.

[kr_patterson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Overall, I was satisfied with the last book of this series. Which is saying a lot, because my expectations were very high. The only thing I would really hold against it is that it didn't quite have the emotional depth I hoped it would go to. John, despite what he thinks about himself, feels things intensely--which is why I loved him so much. He was so conflicted. I saw less conflict in this book and more... I don't know, maybe acceptance of who he was? It almost came across as a bit more maturity, but I missed the intensity. Even still, I very much enjoyed it. I just love John Wayne Cleaver and will miss him now that this series is over. And yes, that probably means I am a sociopath. I make my husband nervous as I read these books anyway--he tells me not to get any crazy ideas.

[forevermasterless · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Short, but very, very sweet. That's how I would describe the John Cleaver trilogy. When I finished this book I immediately felt the overwhelming need to read another one, followed by anger at Dan Wells for stopping this great series after three books. But it was just my post-series depression.

The best thing about this trilogy is that it doesn't overstay it's welcome, and the ending is the kind that makes your mind wander and imagine all of the possibilities that wait for John in the future. I like endings like that. I like them a lot.

I read this book faster than either of the previous two entries, and I have to say that it's way more of a page-turner. There's two killers to deal with this time, and there's a lot less time for the slower moments of John's life than there were in the previous two books. Most of the word count is devoted to action, John's internal puzzling over the clues and killers' psychological profiles, and his intimate discussions with Marci about them.

The ending was unexpected. The identities of the killers was unexpected. Dan Wells just, in general, threw me for a loop with this one. I thought I had everything figured out about halfway through, and I was worried that the book was becoming too predictable. So glad to be proven wrong. I'm planning to read Dan Wells' other novels, though even if I don't care for them (as I suspect will be the case with his series 'Partials') I will forever remember him fondly as the man who wrote one of the tightest, shortest, sweetest, most entertaining series it has ever been my pleasure to read.

[jafi14 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books ever! Cant wait for the next book...if there even is another one?! 

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I started Dan Well’s YA series about John Cleaver, a possible budding serial killer with high hopes. I was taken aback by the strange twist that the first book took, but the humor kept me invested and so I continued on with the second book. Now in the third, I Don’t Want to Kill You I do believe that I have had enough of this saga and will not be reading on. I found little humor or story interest and felt only relief when I finished the book.

[knowledgelost · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I’m a little sad to think the John Cleaver series is now over. I was really enjoying the socially awkward teenage sociopath and his struggle through high school. While the supernatural twist was a good one, I really wanted to know more about John and his struggle with others and teenage urges. I wonder if there are more books like this.

[erincathryn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Probably closer to 2.5 stars, but rounding up.

I thought it wrapped up a little too nicely for me, and also left too much open, like there might be more sequels. I don't like that.

Overall, glad to see the story come to a close, and not sorry to see it end. The premise of a teenage serial killer was interesting, but in the end it failed to keep me engaged.

[sjkessel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wells, D. (2011). I Don't Want to Kill You. New York: Tor Books.320 pages.Appetizer: In the final installment of the I Am Not a Serial Killer series, John, a sociopathic mortician's son, is stalking women--all who have had a major change in their lives. He's been letting some of his well-crafted rules (all designed to prevent him from becoming a serial killer) slip recently. He's waiting for Nobody, the big bad demon he challenged at the end of Mr. Monster, to arrive in town.When a famed serial killer named The Handyman seems to have come from Georgia, John knows that Nobody is at work and tries to profile the Handyman in the hopes of protecting the county. But, John must also question some of his choices he makes as girls in town commit suicide: Are these people worth protecting? Could he could actually be a hero? He knew innocent people would have to die for him to find the next demon after all.John's rules of how to avoid becoming a serial killer slip even more when, a girl named Marci asks him out. The daughter of a police officer, they begin to profile the killer and parts of John's personality that only him mom has seen before begin to show. But with his mask slipping and his true nature revealed, will Nobody find him before he can find the demon?I found I Don't Want to Kill You to be a fitting conclusion to this trilogy. With touches of humor, I thought it was a little lighter and more enjoyable than the second book, Mr. Monster, which had gotten suuuuper dark.There are some great twists in the story and some nice foils to John's character to provide some insights into who he is.I did feel as though the book did leave itself open to another chapter in John Cleaver's story in the future.Dinner Conversation:"I didn't know Jenny Zeller very well. Nobody did, really. I guess that's why she killed herself." (p. 13)"Yes, finding a killer is easy. Finding someone before they kill is almost impossible. And the worst part about that was the way it made me so much easier to find than the demon. I'd already killed two people." (p. 18)"Thus it was that five days after the killing, when I'd analyzed the news coverage a hundred times, run out of leads, and was desperate for more information, the FBI delivered the corpse right to my door.I have the best job in the world." (p. 33)."Now that I was a real demon hunter, everything was different. My dark side had a safe outlet, and my dreams at night were heroic tales of John the Conqueror, slaying all the dark things of the world--and if I enjoyed the slaying a little more than necessary, well, that was my right." (p. 52)"I laughed, smiling thinly. "The daughter of a cop and the son of a mortician: teen crime fighters. We're like a bad TV show." (p. 98)

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book three in Dan Wells' series about John Cleaver, a teenage sociopath who attempts to divert his violent tendencies into protecting the people of his small town from creatures worse than he is. I've seen this described as a young adult series before, despite the high levels of gore and disturbing content, but this is the first one that's actually had something of a YA vibe for me, possibly just because John spends much more of the story interacting with other teenagers. That's not really a complaint, though, just an observation. The plot this time out is perhaps not quite as suspenseful as in the first one or as intense as the second, and I was able to figure out a fair amount of what was going on well before the main character did. The details were interesting enough to keep my attention, though, and there were one or two surprising moments and a sufficiently exciting ending. As usual, however, it's the character of John himself that really makes this worth reading. I am genuinely impressed by Wells' ability to pull off a fairly delicate balancing act with this character. He's very clearly the good guy here, and it's possible he even has the potential to be a good person, but he's also really freaking creepy. The combination is oddly compelling.I'm not sure if there are going to be any more books in this series -- I have the impression it was conceived as a trilogy -- but if there are, I will definitely be there.

[poemyhero · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed the first two John Cleaver books! This one kicked even more butt! I loved it! Wells certainly does have a way with writing. I just love John's struggle with his inner demons, while he's fighting demons. This book continued that struggle and added even more fun! I just loved it!